


Alone (Together) Time

by quantumducky



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Bonding, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff, Gen, Hair Braiding, Missing Scene, Platonic Cuddling, i just think they should be friends...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23681035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumducky/pseuds/quantumducky
Summary: When the Mechanisms went down to the City, Ivy was nowhere to be found....And so, she was the only one still on the ship when Nastya returned.(Or: What did Ivy and Nastya do during UDAD before going to pick up the rest of the crew? You can't prove it wasn't sleepovers.)
Relationships: Ivy Alexandria & Nastya Rasputina, The Aurora & Ivy Alexandria, The Aurora/Nastya Rasputina
Comments: 11
Kudos: 78
Collections: Mechs Fic Exchange





	Alone (Together) Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sapphire363](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphire363/gifts).



> To my exchange recipient: this is not technically your entire gift! With a few days left, I realized I wasn't going to have time to finish the gift fic I was originally writing (based on your specific prompt), so I looked through my planned-but-not-written fic ideas for one that fit the other things you mentioned liking. However, I still want to finish the fic I was writing originally, so whenever I get it done, you'll be getting an extra gift :)!

When the Mechanisms went down to the City, Ivy was nowhere to be found.

Well, that wasn’t quite true. They knew where she was. It’s just that no one  _ really _ wanted to go looking for her, especially not when they could be seeking out fun and/or violence instead. She had gotten lost in the depths of the Aurora, and the thing about the depths of the Aurora was that there were lots of other, non-Ivy things in there as well, like spiders, and mysterious corpses nobody wanted to be responsible for cleaning up. When she didn’t respond to a bit of shouting, everyone shrugged and left without her.

As it turned out, it wasn’t exactly accurate to say she’d gotten lost, either, without adding one extra word. Ivy, in fact, had gotten  _ herself _ lost, and as soon as Aurora let her know everyone was gone, she promptly found herself again.

It wasn't that she didn't like them- regrettable as it often was, the assortment of immortal pricks she shared a living space with had grown on her rather like her namesake- but among their many flaws was a tendency to be very  _ loud. _ Sometimes, Ivy wanted a bit of peace and quiet, some time alone- as alone as one could get on a sentient ship, at least. This was the first time she’d been quite  _ this _ close to alone for more than a few days, blips of time she had barely even noticed in the larger scheme of things. Right now, even Nastya was away, yet to return from whatever secretive personal mission she’d left to carry out.

(Ivy had her guesses as to what that was, but finding out for sure would have been an invasion of privacy. At least that was what Aurora said when she denied Ivy access to the recordings from her security cameras. Which Ivy thought was hypocritical, given that the only thing  _ Aurora _ ever used them for was blackmailing the crew into being nice to her and Nastya under threat of embarrassment. It rarely  _ worked, _ since none of them had much in the way of shame, but that wasn’t Ivy’s point.)

In any case. Ivy was alone on the ship, and it was very quiet, and that was how she liked it. She didn’t mind that she couldn’t get away from the Aurora herself; Aurora wasn’t loud, she was actually quite good company. When Ivy wasn’t in her own library, she often found herself curled up on the floor of the engine room. Normally, Nastya would shoo her out if she tried to read there, saying something about being in the way even though she clearly wasn’t; Ivy didn’t need any video evidence to know she really just wanted to be left alone with her girlfriend. She couldn’t do that now, though, and Ivy liked it there, with the warmth and the background hum of the engines. Before long, a pile of blankets, books, and Ivy’s favorite snacks had collected in a corner. More often than not it was where she ended up sleeping. The octokittens appeared to share her sentiments re: warmth and lack of shooing-out, and there was usually one in her lap and another few lounging on the machinery. Ivy pulled them out when they fell in and got stuck, because otherwise they irritated Aurora.

It had been thirty years, eight months and twenty-six days since the rest of the crew left when Ivy was startled out of her concentration by the sound of an alarm. The noise was gone as soon as it came, but turning it off didn’t put back the mini pretzels that had scattered all over the floor when she jumped. “What was that for?” she asked irritably into the air.

The Aurora either didn’t notice how annoyed she was or couldn’t bring herself to care.  _ NASTYA IS BACK, _ she spoke directly into Ivy’s brain, not bothering with the extra seconds it would have taken to communicate in some less jarring way.

“Oh.” She fished around the blankets for her bookmark and saved her place. “I assume you’ll be wanting me out of the way for your reunion, then.”

There was a split second of hesitation, which, for someone like either of them, was a long enough pause to be fairly telling.  _ NOT YET. I AM WORRIED. _

“About Nastya?”

_ SHE HAS NOT MOVED. I AM WORRIED. WILL YOU GO TO HER? _

Ivy rubbed her temples. “If I go find out what’s taking her so long, will you stop shouting into my brain?”

_ Yes. Go to Nastya, _ she repeated.

“Alright, I heard you, I’m going.” She left her mess of things where it was, guessing Aurora wouldn’t appreciate her stopping to clean up first, and headed for where the hauler Nastya had taken was docked.

Just as Aurora said, Nastya was still inside. She was sitting on the floor, knees pulled up to her chest, staring at the opposite wall. When Ivy approached and said her name, she didn’t even look up. Judging by the state of her, she’d been at the centre of an explosion a while ago and hadn’t slept since. The fine blend of rust and ash coating her face was smeared as if she’d tried to wipe it off, but it didn’t look like she had tried for very long before giving up and letting it stay there. Ivy crouched down to her level. Her eyes were haunted, and didn’t register the woman in front of her in the slightest.

“Nastya?”

Nastya didn’t react, and Ivy began to wonder if she’d died of something or other on the way here and simply hadn’t come back to life yet. She sighed and reached for her wrist to check if the liquid metal in her veins was actually flowing.

As soon as Ivy’s fingers touched her pulse point, Nastya’s eyes snapped to the point of contact. She looked up at Ivy’s face, then back down at her hand, and moved just enough to grip it with her own. Ivy let her work through whatever she was thinking until she looked up again, and finally seemed to be looking  _ at _ her rather than just in the direction where she happened to be.

“Nastya?” she asked again, quietly, trying not to startle.

She cleared her throat, and her voice was as rusty as the rest of her when she spoke. “Am I… back?”

“Yes, you’re docked with the Aurora. Do you want to stand up and come inside? She’s worried about you.”

Nastya blinked a few times and looked down. “Yes. Of course. I do not want to worry her.”

Sitting there without moving for so long left her legs stiff and weak, so Ivy helped her up and offered her an arm to lean on without comment as they left the hauler and returned to Aurora. Nastya winced at the brightness of the lights; they were dimmed almost instantly, earning a soft exhale and a faint, brief smile.

“Everyone else went down to a planet, so they won’t be bothering us… Where were you?” Ivy ventured, hoping to finally sate her curiosity.

Her face closed off again. “I do not want to talk about it.”

She nodded, trying not to look at disappointed as she felt. Maybe a little later. Oh, right, it was rude to interrogate people about events that had obviously upset them, wasn’t it? People got angry about that sort of thing. …Maybe a  _ lot _ later, then. She changed the subject.

“Where do you want to go?”

Nastya didn’t answer for long enough that Ivy almost thought she’d lost her again, and then she shook her head slowly. “You don’t need to… here is fine.”  _ Here, _ to be clear, was the middle of an empty corridor. Nastya pulled away from Ivy and leaned herself against the wall. She was obviously going to fall over as soon as she was left alone. She flapped a hand in a  _ shoo _ motion, but Ivy was mainly paying attention to how that hand was shaking in protest of the effort.

Aurora could only communicate  _ directly _ in certain areas of the ship, but the lights flickered at them in a distinctly scolding way. Ivy had not been about to go along with it  _ anyway, _ thank you very much, but at least it gave her a good excuse for insisting.

“Right, I’m not getting shouted at again today, so  _ you’re _ not staying here. Come on.”

Nastya, it appeared, was out of energy with which to argue. She went back to being quiet and spaced-out while Ivy practically dragged her back to the engine room, the first place she could think of that would be comfortable for the both of them. She knew it was a good choice as soon as they walked through the doorway: Nastya sighed and went nearly limp, which was bad for Ivy’s efforts to avoid dropping her on the floor, but presumably a good sign in terms of her emotional state.

_ Be careful with her, _ Aurora was fussing the second it was possible, and Ivy managed not to snap back that it wasn’t her fault  _ someone _ had decided to suddenly become a dead weight. She reluctantly deposited Nastya in her perfectly good,  _ clean _ blanket pile- only because if she tried to put her down anywhere that  _ wasn’t _ soft, Aurora would have taken offense and argued, and then she would be holding up an entire adult person for several seconds longer than necessary. Nastya curled up in the blankets immediately, pressing her forehead against the wall and mumbling something to Aurora that Ivy couldn’t make out.

Ivy waited a moment, just in case, but she could tell the two of them were having some private, mostly silent conversation, and she wasn’t needed anymore. Fine. It wasn’t as if she had  _ wanted _ to be involved here in the first place, and if she felt hurt regardless, that was because feelings never made any sense. She turned to go back to her own part of the ship and leave them to it.

She didn’t make it to the door before Aurora stopped her.  _ Why are you leaving? _

“My role in this is done, isn’t it? I brought her to you. I’m sure you know what she needs better than I do.” Her voice stayed carefully neutral, because the nonsense feelings were  _ her _ problem, not theirs.

_ I do know what she needs. She needs things I cannot give her. All I can do is talk. _ Aurora’s mental voice was pained.  _ She needs more than just me. Will you sit with her? _

Ivy turned around, looked again. Nastya wasn’t just curled up comfortably as she’d thought at first sight; she had her arms wrapped around herself tight, body pressed against the wall like she was trying to burrow inside it.

_ Please, _ Aurora added, just after Ivy had already decided to do it anyway.

It was hardly a difficult request, after all. She pushed Nastya’s legs aside so there was room for her to sit down, settled with her back against the wall just close enough that her presence could be felt, and retrieved what she’d been reading before all this happened. Nastya kept up her silent conversation and gradually began to relax again, shifting to get more comfortable in ways that just so happened to bring her nearly on top of Ivy’s legs. By then, that position was already occupied by an octokitten. Ivy generously moved it on top of Nastya instead, and when she finally found herself unable to move due to being used as a pillow by her exhausted crewmate, she made the best of it by propping her book up on Nastya’s head. Ivy wasn’t sure if she was actually sleeping or just lying very still, but if she  _ was _ awake, she didn’t seem to particularly mind.

Ivy didn’t particularly mind, either. The  _ being a pillow _ situation, that is. She didn’t… touch people very much, in her everyday life, or at least not in ways that didn’t involve murder. In fairness, it was hard to do nearly  _ anything _ in ways that didn’t involve murder, when the Mechanisms were the ones doing it. So this was a strange experience, and as it turned out, it was… nice. She wouldn’t say no to doing it again. It was a little sad to think that Nastya would probably want to pretend none of this ever happened once she was back to her usual self.

After some time, Nastya stirred and squinted up at her, having taken off her glasses earlier so they wouldn’t dig into her face. “Ivy?”

“Yes?”

“…What are you reading?”

“Oh, this? It’s a critique of-”

“Sounds fascinating,” she mumbled, already turning away. “Why don’t you read me some of it? Since I do not have my glasses to read it myself.”

Ivy was fairly certain the bigger obstacle would have been her lack of X-ray vision to see through the cover, given the book was facing away from her. She was also fairly certain Nastya’s interest in the subject matter was nonexistent, although it was impossible to know for sure when she hadn’t actually listened long enough to find out what exactly that was. She read it to her anyway, starting from where she’d last left off before the interruption. Nastya was maybe-probably-asleep again before she even turned to the next page.

She didn’t sleep long, but when she sat up a little over an hour later, it had clearly done her some good. She didn’t mention the position of sleepy platonic cuddling she’d woken up in, so Ivy didn’t say anything about it either. She felt around for her glasses until Ivy handed them to her and then stood.

“I need to wash off all of  _ this.” _ She gestured vaguely to herself, and patted the wall on her way out of the room. “Don’t worry Aurora, I will not be gone long.”

By Ivy’s assessment, she was 80% less unsteady than before her nap, so she didn’t try to accompany her. “You’ll know if she needs anything,” she reminded Aurora just in case she  _ was _ worrying, and went to put everything Nastya had just touched in the wash.

When Nastya returned, Ivy was back in the same spot waiting for her, now with even more blankets. Both of them were a little more awkward about the whole thing now that they were both fully awake. Nastya sat down next to Ivy and then proceeded to almost ignore her while struggling with a hair tie. Ivy, in turn, didn’t acknowledge her either, even though both of them seemed to agree they were having some kind of weird engine-room-floor slumber party. Ivy had even found more snacks.

Each of them went on pretending the other didn’t exist until Nastya dropped her hair tie into the pile of blankets and muttered a swear she probably thought Ivy wouldn’t understand. She found it after a few seconds only to immediately lose it again, and Ivy, peeking over at her, saw the problem. Cleaning herself up must have taken a lot out of her; her hands were shaking again, and the frustration she was building up was only making it worse.

Ivy tapped her shoulder and held out a hand. “Give it here.”

Nastya gave her a wide-eyed look for a second, like she had pretended Ivy wasn’t there so hard she’d forgotten she actually  _ was. _

“You don’t  _ have _ to,” she amended with a sigh, “but it would be easier if you just let me do it.”

She blinked out of it and nodded slowly.

“Did you just want your hair up?”

“A braid, to keep it neat.” She handed Ivy the hair tie and turned her back to her. “…I assume you do know how to-”

_ “Yes, _ I know how to make a good braid. My brain is connected to the internet, Nastya, I know  _ everything.” _

“That is why I said I assumed you knew. Obviously.”

Ivy rolled her eyes with an amused sigh, and decided the best way to avoid further ridiculous questions was to just get it done before Nastya could come up with any more.

Of course, she wasn’t going to  _ rush _ it. First of all, she wouldn’t hear the end of it if she did a bad job after saying she knew everything. Second, Nastya’s freshly washed hair was very soft, and she didn’t normally like anyone touching it, and Ivy didn’t think anyone could blame her for wanting to slow down and enjoy the experience of getting to play with it. It didn’t look like Nastya was going to call her out, in any case, when last Ivy checked her eyes were drifting shut and she was dangerously close to falling asleep sitting up. (The  _ dangerous _ part came from the octokitten in her lap, which was perfectly content now, but looked like it might get a little bitey if she stopped petting it.)

So all things considered, maybe it was not strictly necessary for Ivy to take fifteen minutes doing a simple braid, but at least it didn’t take any  _ longer _ than that, either. She tied it off, moved the octokitten to a safe distance so it would get distracted by something else before attacking anyone’s fingers, and poked Nastya until she lay down. If all went according to plan- yes, playing with her hair for ten minutes was definitely part of a plan and not just a thing Ivy had really wanted to do- she’d be relaxed enough now that she would go right to sleep, and not start thinking about… whatever it was she didn’t want to think about right now. Safe to assume there was something, after all that.

Aurora turned down the lights once they were both settled in the blankets, just enough so they weren’t in total darkness.  _ Sleep well, _ she told them both, and both of them mumbled it back, although Ivy realized she wasn’t entirely clear on whether what Aurora did at night actually counted. But a few of the octokittens had gravitated over to join them in the blanket pile, and she was  _ very _ comfortable, and finding out didn’t seem worth disturbing all that for. Maybe she would remember to ask in the morning.


End file.
